


The Road Ahead

by NuMo



Series: The Road Ahead [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: AU, Crossover, Established Relationship, F/F, Post-Canon, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starts out fluffy, but does NOT end that way.</p><hr/><p>Part One of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/23850">"The Road Ahead"</a> Series. This one is set after the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/18811">"Curtains and Masks"</a> Series. I strongly suggest you read that one first; I don't think this story, or series, will work by itself. </p><p>I don't own Star Trek nor anything connected with it, but I do own my own characters. I'm not making any profit, although I hope to reap some feedback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Future (Augst 26th)

_For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes._

* * *

“Marie, why didn’t you _tell_ me it was your birthday?” Kathryn moves away from me on the sofa, to glare at me more easily. I’m feeling a bit under the weather, still, from celebrating, lack of sleep, and frankly, summer in Indiana, and her being upset with me is something I can’t quite stomach at the moment. 

I run a hand across my face, dislodging my glasses. After two days of contact lenses and weird sleeping hours, my eyes need them, though. “I got a party, didn’t I? And such a party, too.” My conspiratorial grin goes out to Ellie in the easy chair, who slightly averts her head as if begging me to keep her out of this. But it’s been she who revealed this, after all, giving me her present, two tickets for the New York Philharmonics, who, apparently, are still going strong. “And this way, you’ll never miss my birthday ever again, nor our anniversary; that’s good, isn’t it?”

Obviously not. Kathryn continues to glare at me. “You realize I don’t have any present to-”

“Oh stop it at once, Kathryn.” I’m rarely this forceful, and it does indeed stop her. “You…” I pause, swallowing a few words, then flip up my hands. “Kathryn, you _married_ me – nothing, _nothing_ can ever top that.” I grin. “So, no pressure for next year.”

She throws her hands in the air, too, and I know what she’ll say the moment she opens her mouth. “Marie, you’re impossible.”

“Yup,” I agree lazily, leaning back onto the sofa. “And I’m telling you now: I won’t go without a party of my own then. I’ll be four hundred, after all.”

Kathryn never loses her glare, only huffs at my attempt to make a joke of it. Slouched as I am, my eyes droop close – I’m tired even now, two days after the event. Marrying Kathryn has been, plain and simple, the happiest moment of my life, but a wedding is incredibly tough going, something I’ve never really appreciated until now. And it wasn’t only our wedding, it was the ‘Finally it’s all resolved’ party, too. So Kathryn and I had danced, of course. After deciding who’d lead – of course (in the end, we switched). And yes, I’d danced with Jean-Luc again. We’d chatted and mingled and spent as much time with each guest as we could, and still I feel I haven’t done them all justice. We’d eaten far, far too much stuff, even if it had been delicious stuff. We’d posed for pictures, and not even reluctantly. Kathryn had worn a brilliant, slightly dazed smile all day long, and my own probably hadn’t differed much. I’ve yet to see the pictures, though, _and_ the video – Ellie, Tom, the Doctor and Naomi (of all people) had had cameras glued to their faces for most of the time. 

I think we were at single-digit figures on the clock when the last guests left, with the promise, of a select few, to come over again for brunch a few hours later. Well, when I say a few – neither the kitchen nor the sitting room had been able to hold us, and so the afternoon had found us on the lawn again, all thirty-something of us. God, but I had been too tired to socialize much, ashamed though it makes me. I don’t think I’d gotten more than two hours of sleep – my wedding night, after all; I’d been _determined_. But it had taken its toll – at five p.m., I’d started yawning. At six, I’d been fast asleep, and I still can’t believe that people left without waking me, that Kathryn, or Gretchen, or Ellie, anyone, really, _let_ them leave without waking me. I’d slept away the rest of the evening and a lot of this morning, too – it’s almost noon, for heaven’s sake. 

“So what are you going to do now?” Ellie gamely tries to get the conversation into safer waters when the silence draws out. Then she grins widely, “honeymooning?” 

Success, I should say. I could get used to the way Kathryn smiles, I really could. “Marie, remember when I told you about taking leave for a few days?”

“How could I forget?” 

She holds up two fingers and wriggles them. 

“Don’t tell me you only managed to get two days of leave, love.” My mood drops, as do the corners of my mouth.

“Weeks,” she tells me, smile flaring, and I, tired as I am, find energy to squeal and hug her. 

“Mars?”

She nods. “And I’ll fly you to the moon, too.” I beam at her.

“You’re incredible, you two,” Ellie tells us dryly. “Two days, and you’re still drunk on each other.”

“I guess we are, at that,” I agree lightly, and look back at my wife in time to see her face turn regretful.

“I’ll be off to oversee _Voyager’s_ refit after that, though,” Kathryn sighs. “And I’ve told Marie just a few days ago that I can’t commute to and from Mars every day. It’ll take at least three months, and that’s _their_ estimate – I think we’ll pop some corks when we finish before the year is over.” Her head falls forwards into cupped hands, and I tug at her sleeve until she leans into me. “And the trip itself is one hell of a schedule,” she goes on, eyes closed. “We’ll return to Earth after each visit, to exchange data and experts, and then set out again. I’ll be gone a week, ten days or twenty, with a maximum of three days’ layover at HQ. They really have us hopping.”

“Who will you take with you as crew?” I ask her, smoothing my fingers through her hair.

“They wouldn’t let me sign Chakotay as first officer,” oh, how she purses her lips. “Very close-mouthed about it, too. They told me, though, that Commander Troi has volunteered for the job, which sounds quite workable. She has her bridge officer’s credits, after all, _and_ served alongside Picard on almost every diplomatic encounter the _Enterprise_ had.” And she’s my wife’s counselor, and still needed as such, I think to myself while Kathryn sighs, deeply. “I’m not quite sure what to do about the commander’s family, though – her wife could come, seeing as she’s a doctor, but I don’t know what our Doctor will say to that, assuming _he_ wants to come. 

“And it would mean either separating their kids from both their mothers, or pushing Nechayev to allow families on board, and I don’t know if we have the space, even if we won’t have a full crew complement aboard. It’s a goodwill mission, after all,” Kathryn’s left hand comes up, expressing vague displeasure, just as her voice does, “not much science, and even less battles, hopefully. Negotiation and diplomacy instead. So we certainly don’t need as many crewmembers, and they _could_ bring families. On the other hand, we’ll have to accommodate for guest quarters for mission experts and the dignitaries we’ll be bringing with us. Giving the go-ahead for family quarters would mean even more internal re-fits, but it would also allow Tom and B’Elanna to resume their respective posts.”

“You want to keep as much of your family around you as possible, right?” I wink at her.

She sighs again. “I can’t have Tuvok, I can’t have Harry.” True. Tuvok’s on his way back to Vulcan to teach, Harry’s on his way to command track fame, already full lieutenant and boldly going for his third pip, from what I hear. “And since they won’t let me have Chakotay,” she goes on across my musings, “I certainly won’t push for Seven and separate them. But on a mission like this, with so much diplomatic dancing and walking on eggshells… I need experienced hands, officers I can trust. So yes, I’ve sent out the call to the old crew, and a few have already said yes. Lessing and Gilmore among them,” she twists her head around to look at me, and I nod, eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise. 

“Both Tom’s and B’Elanna’s decision hinges on the family issue, though,” Kathryn goes on. “And I can’t green-light bringing kids for only a select few of them, either, can I?” She rubs her forehead with one hand and hides a yawn behind the other. “As it is, I’ve only got about two thirds of the crew manifest, which is simply not enough, even if we do have some time. I still need around forty, forty-five more officers…” for the third time, she sighs.

“Commander Troi could probably recommend a few people of her own, couldn’t she?” I muse. “From what I’ve heard, people on the _Enterprise_ gain experience quite quickly.” Smoothing her frown away with my thumb, my wedding ring catches my eye – people will notice, won’t they? That she’s wearing one? Maybe they’ll even notice that the one on my hands is its twin. Or maybe not. After all, our paths don’t cross much, and I’ve decided to keep my name. Both because I don’t want the attention ‘Janeway’ would catch, and because of what ‘Vey’ means to me – remnant of my past, and so on. I was so glad when she didn’t bat an eye. “I do hope you’ll not go through CVs on our honeymoon, though.”

“Promise.” Kathryn kisses my chin, then drops her head to my shoulder, closing her eyes again. 

“Too bad _I_ can’t come. I’d love to see all those places. Foreign planets, for crying out loud.”

“Well, I could try and see whether there’s a post that fits your abilities.” Kathryn’s mouth quirks.

“You already have a counselor aboard, The Counselor from what I hear.” And as I said, it’s a good thing, too, I know it is. Nothing to be jealous about, or envious of, certainly. “And I’m not a Starfleet officer.”

“Oh, we’ll have a number of civilians onboard, Marie. Experts on the planets we’ll be visiting, Federation negotiators-”

“And my expertise in those areas is really phenomenal, after all.” Ellie frowns at me, clearly irritated at my dark tones. “I’m sorry,” I relent, kissing Kathryn’s hairline. “It’s just… I thought about it, too. About joining you. And I’m damned if I see a task for me aboard.”

“Keeping the CO happy?” Kathryn raises an eyebrow at me.

“Arm candy?” I fire back.

Ellie sits up straighter. “Stop it, the two of you. You’re giving me a headache.” Then she turns to me. “Why don’t you join Starfleet, then?”

I glare at her, glad that Kathryn can’t see it. Ellie knows I’ve given some thought to joining, and she knows why I don’t like the idea. And she knows why I can’t explain that to Kathryn. “Well, even if I did, it would take a while to get through the Academy, wouldn’t it? And there’s no guarantee I wouldn’t get assigned to some rust-bucket on the outer fringes of known spaces.” And it wouldn’t change the scope of my abilities much. I’d still be a social worker, or counselor, and The Counselor has signed on already, after all. Yes, I have given this some thought.

“You wouldn’t be,” Kathryn drawls, stretching lazily, and completely derailing my mental processes with it, “unless they put me there, too, and they’re not in the habit of putting admirals on rust buckets. We’re married now, that counts for something.” My heart sings at her words, and not even her next can change that. “Although… being married to a civilian can be easier. Starfleet couples are under a lot of surveillance, especially when the partners serve in the same line of command.”

“The fearsome F-word,” I sigh, catch an elbow, and elaborate, “fraternization,” for Ellie’s benefit.

“Indeed. But we did well on _Voyager_ , enough people can testify to that.” Kathryn’s voice is… dreamy, somehow. As if the idea of having me on her ship really didn’t scare her anymore, and I wonder what’s brought this change about. The wedding? Those four months on _Voyager_? Or the fact that her mission probably won’t entail more danger than an unpalatable canapé?

Either way, I love her for it. Either way, I can’t come with her, and my heart feels bleak at the thought.

* * *

Serving together with Marie. Now there’s a thought. Starfleet has never discouraged marriage or other forms of interpersonal commitment, under the objective that the working performance of the people involved does not suffer. At least, that’s the official statement preceding that particular set of regulations. No favoritism, no harassment, no abuse of rank or dereliction of duty. But that’s easier said than done – oh, not the simple facts of the matter. Anyone with half a mind can avoid seeming to favor or harass another officer. But handling the emotional role-playing necessary to keep a personal relationship from impairing the working one? Could Kathryn give orders that would endanger Marie? Directly? After the Friiell matter? 

It’s not a question of whether or not such a moment would be likely to come up on her next mission, either. It’s the principle behind it; and the question whether the complications inherent would outweigh the… satisfaction of having Marie aboard, not as a guest, but as an officer. She’d make a good one, for all her irreverence. Not your run-of-the-mill space cadet, certainly, but Kathryn had never been appreciative of them, anyway. No – that spark. Tom Paris has it, Chakotay as well. B’Elanna, good grief, yes. Even Harry, by now, and certainly the Doctor. Seven had been nothing but spark at times, untempered by protocol as she is. Mavericks, unconventional, unafraid to speak their minds – and just maybe that definition extends to their CO, too, at least after seven years of Delta Quadrant. 

Marie had fitted well in there, but would she fit in a more… classical Starfleet environment? For all Kathryn’s insistence that _Voyager_ be a Starfleet ship, they hadn’t done all things the Starfleet way; not strictly, and how could they have. There wasn’t a protocol for integrating Borg technology, nor for integrating a crew consisting of hunters and the hunted. But for all the newness that had rained down on Marie, she’d adapted quickly. Ellie, too.

But could Kathryn ask it of her? _Do I want to? If we weren’t married, if she were just a friend asking me for career advice, would I recommend joining Starfleet to her?_ Well, at least the answer to that is easy – yes. Marie’s training is needed in Starfleet – the shortage of counselors to aid _Voyager’s_ crew after their homecoming had spoken volumes. But, with that being the case, would she be sent on a mission like this at all? Or would she be assigned somewhere she was needed more? A look down at her finger reassures Kathryn a bit – they don’t usually separate married couples anymore, not if at all possible. But then again, Marie’s comment had been to the point – there really isn’t a post on _Voyager’s_ new mission that Kathryn can see her wife in. Just as the original one, this one doesn’t need an assigned counselor, and even if it did – Commander Troi is more than qualified, which is one of the reasons Kathryn has approved of her application as XO.

She had felt a bit uneasy about it, though. Granted, in these last few weeks, ever since that first appointment outside their assessment routine, talking to Troi really had helped, but that had also meant that Kathryn had looked hard, for quite a while, for signs that she hadn’t opted for Troi as XO just because the counseling was so important to her. The symptoms Marie had spoken about hadn’t shown up yet, true - well, apart from sleeplessness and the occasional nightmare, but those weren’t necessarily indicators of trauma, were they? Still, when Kathryn had recounted that particular conversation to the counselor, the solemn, thoughtful look on Troi’s face told Kathryn that her wife hadn’t been too far off the mark in her reasoning. It had alarmed her, a little. Then she had indeed started reading up, smirking at how well Marie had known she would. 

“How about children?” Ellie says, out of the blue. She doesn’t even flinch at the look on Kathryn’s face, either. “I mean, this has been about what’s going to happen professionally, it’s only logical to think about the personal, too, you know.” 

“Good grief, Leelee, give us a break here. We’re married all of two days,” Marie exhales explosively.

“You do want kids, though, don’t you?” Ellie asks the question Kathryn can’t find breath for. They never talked about this, and maybe they should have had, before getting married so quickly. Still – thinking back on how her mother and her best friends had conspired to bring it about leaves a warm feeling in Kathryn’s stomach.

“Of course I do,” Marie replies instantly, and that warmth grows. “You know that, Leelee. I’ve always wanted kids. Plural. Lots.” There’s a grin in her voice now, but it’s gone when she goes on, head tilted into the edge of Kathryn’s field of vision, “how about you?”

“Yes.” Kathryn’s answer is instantaneous. She turns her head to meet Marie’s eyes. “You remember us talking about Sam Wildman, and B’Elanna, don’t you? They were so…” she doesn’t finish her thought.

“I do remember,” Marie smiles. “We both thought they were amazing.” Then her voice changes yet again, at what she sees in Kathryn’s eyes, probably. “You want to bear a baby yourself.” Filled with wonder, her words are.

“I want to go first, too.” A furious blush assaults Kathryn. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

“Mind? It’s sensible. You’re older, after all. _And_ I get to watch, and learn.”

A raised eyebrow greets that statement. “Aren’t you charming this morning?”

“Well,” Marie drawls while Ellie chuckles, “I’ll be the one fetching things and rubbing your feet, won’t I?”

Kathryn rolls her eyes, then her face darkens. “Still, it won’t work. I’d be on duty.” 

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong,” Ellie says dryly, “but the very fact that you witnessed Sam’s and B’Elanna’s pregnancies means they occurred on duty, right?”

“But I’ll be the cap- uh, commanding officer.” 

Marie isn’t fast enough at hiding her smile at Kathryn’s slip, and catches a glare. “Of a diplomatic mission,” she reminds Kathryn, “holding hands of frightened or estranged allies. See it tactically, Kathryn – what better way to assure someone that all’s well with the world than bringing a child into it?” 

“If that’s the kind of tactics you employ, I should like to see your first command,” Kathryn snorts, but her thoughts are already turning. Children. Trust Ellie to come up with the most digressive things. Working for notorious Ambassador Troi had only heightened that, it seems. But then again, it isn’t, is it? Not far-fetched at all. Love, marriage – family. Marie had sounded so eager, too. 

Children. Kathryn inhales, lets it out again slowly. When she’d resigned herself to being in the Delta Quadrant, she’d ruled it out, even after that ignominious incident with her helmsman and the warp barrier. Seventy years clearly spoke against it. Even twenty-something. But they’re home now, and, she’s not that old. Forty-two, and in good health. On the other hand, forty-two isn’t thirty-three. So going first _would_ be sensible. It’s exasperating, really, how Marie will say things like this and even be right.

But – _I’m leaving soon._ And while being pregnant on duty certainly is the only way imaginable, being pregnant in space and alone, except for brief stopovers, isn’t exactly the way Kathryn had expected it to be. _If you wait for things to be just so, nothing will ever get done,_ Kathryn suddenly remembers her father sternly telling her. _If you want it, go for it._

She smiles and stretches again, pretending to ignore how, again, Marie’s breath catches at the motion, but allowing herself a small, satisfied smile at the reaction nevertheless, fully aware of how that smile will captivate her wife even more. Good God, to be loved this way. Heady, Ellie had called it once. And to love this way – it’s no longer so scary, but… intoxicating, and breathtaking, and… And it will be – not over, but different, in a few weeks. _Marie knows the deal. She understands. Don’t beat yourself up like this. Enjoy that honeymoon, and look forward to your returns. You won’t be half a galaxy away. Two hours at the beginning, a few days at warp later on, at the most._ And pregnant?

“How would it work, you having children?” Ellie asks, disrupting Kathryn’s thoughts. 

“Through a donor,” Kathryn answers, and adds, “or adoption,” for completeness. 

“Not through parthenogenesis?” Marie’s eyes are curious. “Genetic splicing, or something? Come on, it’s the twenty-fourth century after all, and I’d love to have a child with a mixture of both our genomes.” She grins impossibly wide, “That kid would have it made.” Both Ellie and Kathryn groan, unisono. 

Then Kathryn frowns, thinking about the question. “I’m not sure, you know. It really isn’t something I’ve paid much attention to, to be honest.” Thinks for a bit longer. “And while I might not completely agree with the way you’ve put it, I would love to have a baby that’s our baby; genetically, I mean. It would be ours however it’s conceived.” 

Happy chocolate eyes tell her yes.

“You know,” Ellie yawns, “I’ll leave you to talk it over – I can’t tell you how tired I am. And I don’t have a honeymoon coming up, either, but only work and more work, starting tomorrow.” She grins as she rises. “Bet you a brownie that you’re decided before that honeymoon’s over, too.” 

“Good thing my mother isn’t around,” Kathryn growls as the door shuts behind Ellie. “Or Phoebe, for that matter.” She rises, too, to look out of the living room window at the courtyard she knows so well.

Marie laughs softly. “They’d probably stage another stealth action, and then what would we do?” Then, more serious, “I think it’s a good thing, too. It’s _our_ decision, after all. So, just between the two of us – what do you think? In your heart of hearts?”

“I’m not sure, Marie.” Pacing isn’t productive, but neither is sitting still, when you get right down to it. “That rollercoaster… I… it’s just not stopping, you see.” Marie’s nod tells Kathryn that she understands. “For a while it seemed that whenever one matter was resolved, another would raise its head. And when things finally seem to wind down, what happens but that they offer me _Voyager_ on a kind of mission I’d have laughed at, under different circumstances. I’m a scientist first, after all. And then my mother made me marry you, and now we’re talking about kids.” Kathryn throws up her hands in exasperation. “I mean, how about a bit of peace and quiet, for a change?”

“You’d go stir-crazy after a month. Two at most, I’d be willing to bet. Hell, I guess you’ll be longing to return to duty after our honeymoon,” Marie says dryly, and endures the glare with a patient smile until Kathryn looks away and crosses her arms. 

“Possible.” _At least she doesn’t seem upset over the ‘my mother made me marry you’ part._

Marie’s voice turns from teasing to intense. “What do you want to do, Kathryn? Really want? As in, not what you’re being ordered to do, nor even necessarily what being a Starfleet admiral entails?”

The question hangs there, stopping Kathryn’s strides. What indeed?

“I don’t know.” The words come out slowly. “I’ve tried to imagine me working in research, or teaching, or behind a desk, things like that.” She grimaces, and looks at Marie in time to see her smirk. “I guess I could learn to like living without the rush, without the unexpected, but I’m not sure.” She narrows her eyes, then turns to Marie and points behind her, out of the window, up at the sky. “There are days when I think I could do without being out there completely. And then I look up at stationary stars, and they feel… wrong, somehow.” Marie nods, her eyes a-sparkle with a similar sense of adventure, and Kathryn remembers how intrigued she had been about space, and starships, when she’d found out about Kathryn’s origin. Remembers how… well, _starstruck_ Marie had been, at seeing warp rainbows for the first time.

“I don’t think I would like another deep-space mission, though,” she goes on. “On the other hand, a diplomatic run like this…” Kathryn heaves a deep sigh. “Nothing to explore, not really. We’ll be visiting nothing but planets and species that have been Federation member for decades, sometimes centuries. More exciting than a desk job, certainly, but…” she sighs again, spreading her arms in emphasis. “I’m a _scientist_. Space… it’s where I feel I belong. Exploring, meeting, understanding the unknown. It’s what I always wanted to do, and not even our time in the Delta Quadrant has quenched that.” Marie’s smile has changed to that quiet one of hers, the one that means she understands. The one Kathryn would only see over subspace if… She grits her teeth. “I’ve tried imagining a way in which you could be part of this mission, and I keep running into ‘buts’.”

Marie waves a hand. “I did ask what _you_ wanted to do, and I’m glad that you thought about your own self rather than the ‘us’ everyone expects people to suddenly morph into when they enter a committed relationship.” She smiles when she sees the baffled look on Kathryn’s face. “I don’t want you to curb your imagination for my sake, Kathryn. I do want to figure in our future, that’s true, and in the decisions we’ll both make about it. But I’m a realist, remember?” Her smile turns crooked. “And seeing you each time you come back to Earth doesn’t sound too bad.” And from there to wicked. “With or without belly.” Marie holds out her hands a foot in front of her midriff to illustrate what she means, as if the furious wriggling of eyebrows wasn’t enough.

“For what’s it worth,” Kathryn exhales, ignoring Marie’s antics, “I agree that things could be worse. It’s not a border patrol, no peace-keeping mission, at least not in the strictest sense. No policing assignment somewhere out there.” Very slight chance to get lost, in other words.

Marie seems to think along the same lines. “Like the one that brought you to the Badlands, you mean.”

“M-hm.” Time to sit down. Kick back her legs. Accept her wife’s arm across her waist. “What will you do, while I’m gone?”

“I’ll continue working with the DTI and Professor Ashtiani at the Smithsonian, I guess, and, for as long as Tom’s still around, we’ll go on with that holonovel. And… I could start looking for a place to live for us, somewhere that’s a little more temperate than an Indiana summer.”

“You really were wilting at times,” Kathryn agrees with a smile. She’d seen _that_ one coming before Marie had brought it up, and, truth to tell, the impulse had been twitching inside her, too. Spending the weekends here is comfortable, true enough, but it isn’t what Kathryn wants on a continuing basis. For a visit, yes, and emphatically so, but living under the same roof as her sister is already becoming exasperating again, no matter how much she likes Phoebe and her family. Then again, summer is almost over, and they’ll leave for Betazed around October. “And Ellie even more so,” Kathryn goes on, remembering. Then her thoughts jump to something else. “She and Ambassador Troi are doing well together, from what I hear.”

“A match made in… well, I’m not sure where,” Marie laughs. “Really, it’s perfect – Ellie does have good ideas, but she usually thinks they’re not worth anything, and Lwaxana Troi just picks them out of her head and sees that they get going. Between the two of them, I think they’re running most of the Ambassadorial Corps’ parties, conferences, get-togethers and what-have-you. And I heard she’s being wooed by other ambassadors.” Marie’s voice rings with pride. 

“It’s good for her, isn’t it.”

“Oh yes,” Marie agrees readily. “You can practically _see_ her confidence growing. I haven’t seen her enjoy herself so much in years, plus she can get tickets for almost any event or performance. I don’t think she’s home more than two nights a week.”

“She can?” Kathryn raises her eyebrows. It certainly explains the New York Philharmonics tickets. “We need to stay in her good books, then. I can’t remember when I’ve last seen a concert, a play, a ballet.”

“I’ll be happy to take you. But we’re deviating, aren’t we?” Marie lightly pokes Kathryn’s thigh. “Do you think that we could include children in our plans for the years to come?”

“Well, what are your plans for the years to come? We’ve only spoken about mine.”

There’s a smile in Marie’s voice when she answers. “I appreciate your asking. But…” Her shrug twitches beneath Kathryn’s shoulder. “I think I’ll pretty much go on doing the same, for the now.”

“It’s not what you learned, though.”

Marie heaves a silent breath. “No, it’s not. But, you know…”

“It was a lot of responsibility, too, right? Doing what you did.” Kathryn’s mouth quirks. Somehow, she feels this part of the conversation is something they’ve talked about before, only the other way around.

“M-hm.” Marie’s grimace is just as plainly audible as her smile was. “And part of me is glad to be rid of it, it’s true. At least for now.”

“For now, yes. They’ll always need social workers, right? You could pick up again at any time.” 

“I’d have to get up to date, but yes. I could. It’s an option.” 

Kathryn doesn’t answer, but lets the silence draw out. Sitting like this is… soothing. Peaceful. But Kathryn misses the hum of _Voyager’s_ engines, still and after all these months off the ship. And even if her family home feels like home, their apartment still doesn’t, for all the knick-knacks Kathryn brought with her. At least the orchids thrive. “So you’d be relaxed, and you could work from home, too, probably, right?” She waits until she senses Marie’s nod. “Sounds like a good set of circumstances to bring a baby into.”

“I thought you wanted to go first?” Marie sounds amused. “Or did you plan to drop him or her into my lap first thing after pregnancy?”

“I haven’t made any plans about this at all. I’m still thinking my way through this, I suppose.”

Marie fidgets a bit, to fit her arm around Kathryn’s midriff more snugly. “Well, how about talking to me while you do?”

“Let’s say we go ahead. If we start now, it would mean that I’m pregnant over winter, with the birth in late May or early June-”

“‘Still thinking’?” Marie interrupts her with a guffaw, and catches an elbow.

“-which is a nice time for having your birthday,” Kathryn tries to sound unruffled. “And I wouldn’t be pregnant over summer, which my mother swore off of when she carried Phoebe, apparently.”

“Oh?”

“Phoebe was born September 5th,” Kathryn elaborates. “Which reminds me that I need to find something for her, too.” She frowns. “Which I’m not very good at.”

“We’ll think of something.” Marie sounds a lot more confident than Kathryn feels. “Tell me about maternity regulations within Starfleet?”

“Fourteen consecutive weeks around the birth,” Kathryn tells her – that much she remembers off the top of her head. “Usually, expectant mothers stop working six weeks before the due date. If she wants to and her superior officer and doctor agree, she can go on pulling light duty for longer than that – I’ve heard of Vulcan women working right until they start to bear down, although that might be exaggeration.” She smirks. “I know even B’Elanna was glad when the Doctor… ah, _persuaded_ her to go on maternity leave.”

“I remember. I think everyone was, for one reason or another.” 

“I’d hopefully have the Doctor along,” Kathryn goes on, “which would be good. I’d have an inexperienced first officer, though – oh, I don’t doubt that Commander Troi has earned her pips, but I honestly have no idea how she’d manage in the big chair while I’m on maternity leave. On the other hand, the mission is… pretty much plain sailing, at least in theory. I’m certain Troi can hold up her own end of diplomatic endeavors, in any case.”

“Do you think you can hold up your own end with someone swimming around inside of you?”

The image makes Kathryn laugh. “You mean when I become moody, weepy and irrational?”

“You do have a counselor, or someone who used to be, in the chair right beside you. And I’m sure craving herring with whipped cream and mustard can only help at a diplomatic soirée.” A small giggle. “And who would deny a pregnant woman a break, at the negotiation table or wherever, really.” A larger one. “You’d think more people would get this idea.”

“Back to your tactics, are you?” Still, Kathryn can’t help but laugh along.

“I’d really wish to be with you, though,” Marie goes on, far more softly. “To share it with you.”

“And I’d want you to.” Inhale, exhale, squeeze available hand. “I could push for having you aboard with me.”

“And much as I’d appreciate that, I don’t think it would be tactically wise.” 

“Neither do I,” Kathryn sighs, “even if Nechayev did say it was my decision whether I’d allow families on board. But I’d taken that to mean Starfleet couples and maybe their kids, seeing how small _Voyager_ is.” Kathryn’s shoulders are knotting, and it takes conscious effort to loosen them. Marie’s free hand comes up and starts massaging the one that’s closest. “Asking a married or otherwise committed person to leave their loved one, or ones-”

“Already practicing your diplomatic parlance?” Marie throws in, light enough for Kathryn to ignore.

“-for only a few weeks at a time, at most, doesn’t seem so cruel, but how can I do that and then sneak my wife aboard? And even if I restricted it, if I drew the line at children, or allowed only unions aboard where all parties could fit a post, I couldn’t ask Tom and B’Elanna to leave Miral behind, nor could I ask one of them to leave the other and their child. And I want both of them aboard anyway.”

“So.” Marie’s tone is slightly questioning. 

“So reason tells me to… accept that you can’t be a part of this mission, and that it would be difficult to have a child under those circumstances.”

“And what does the other voice say?”

“Hm?”

“Well, you said reason tells you this.” Kathryn doesn’t need to see Marie’s eyes to know they’re gently teasing. “Which sounds to me like ‘my heart is saying something different’.”

Kathryn smiles. “I’m not exactly known for indulging my emotions.”

“Never.” Oh, the sarcasm. Time for more elbow action. “Come on, Captain Kathryn, this is about having kids. It’s expected that your emotions play a part in this, you know.” When Marie goes on, she sounds a lot more serious. “Indulge me for a moment, if you will, and stop thinking rationally about it. Imagine there’s no other decision hinging on this, no mission waiting, imagine being free to spend the next years just as you see fit – got that firmly in your mind?”

“M-hm.” Even though Kathryn knows why Marie is leading her there, it’s not easy to stay in the mental picture. But it’s her wife painting it, Irreverent Marie, who’s asked Kathryn to trust her with her emotions, a trust which hadn’t let Kathryn down so far. So. Glorious freedom ahead, with this woman at her side… what a luxurious thought. “Yes, I have it.”

“Would you start a family with me then?”

“Yes. In a happy heartbeat.” 

Kathryn can feel Marie’s chest expand – she is lying on it, halfway, after all. “Then let’s.”

“But-”

“Kathryn, things might never be right. This mission is scheduled for a while, and however far medicine has come, I don’t like to wait until it’s over.”

“I don’t want to start having babies mid-forties, either, but…” Her voice drops away, but there is no interruption, this time. Kathryn sits up – she wants, _needs_ , to see Marie’s eyes, her face, her expression. “You really mean it, do you.”

An explosive breath says it eloquently enough, but- “Yes, I do, my love.”

“But what about the two of us? We wouldn’t be two any longer. We’d be a family. I… I’m not sure whether I want to give up the…” what? At a loss for words once more, and she’d be doing so well up to now.

“Intimacy?” Marie suggests, not even smiling, and yes, ‘intimacy’ _is_ a good way to put it, so Kathryn nods. “You’re not so unproficient, relationship-wise, as you’d have me believe, are you?” _Now_ she’s smiling. More so, when Kathryn blows her a kiss, quite ironically, for the crooked compliment. “It is the one thing that makes me hesitate most, in fact,” Marie goes on, more soberly. “And as much as I love our future children already, I do love you right now. I… how big a factor is your age, anyway? Uh, sorry for my bluntness, but…” Her smile falters a little, and she blushes.

“I guess the Doctor could tell you more about that than I can,” Kathryn answers, quite detachedly. “Pregnancies right up to menopause are possible, of course, but I’d say that the older you are, the higher the risk for things to go wrong, or be harder.” She takes a deep breath. “But I don’t…” She stops and frowns. Is it pushy to think this way? What if Marie doesn’t agree? Would she comply, just because she thinks Kathryn wants her to? “This isn’t only my decision, Marie.”

“But that’s what I meant earlier, you know?” Marie chuckles, then goes on when Kathryn’s frown gains bewilderment, “I want you to tell me what _you_ want, regardless of what you think I might think or do about it.”

“But what I want influences what you decide, and I don’t want you to… That’s selfish, isn’t it?” Marie is laughing again, if softly.

“In a decision like this? Kathryn, if you told me you wanted leola soufflé for dinner and I didn’t, I would tell you. There are times when I don’t mind going along with what you want, just as you sometimes go along with my ideas. But I’d never swallow my disagreement or doubt over something as far-reaching as this, never. So, please – tell me. _Tell_ me.”

“I don’t want to wait.” 

The smile that breaks out on her wife’s face is dazzling.


	2. Unfolding (August 28th)

“Oh, certainly,” Althea Kalliste Troi replies to my question, eyes jumping with mirth. We’re sitting in her living room – she’s Deanna Troi’s wife, and though they look a bit alike, they’re so different in demeanor that it makes me wonder how they found each other. Then again, I suppose the same holds true for my wife and me. Commander Troi is impeccably friendly, that’s true, but if I were asked to describe her I would use words like quiet, or even serene. Althea… is a riot. Larger than life, for all her diminutive size. And somehow, apparently, able to combine two female genomes into a new one. 

Deanna Troi had directed Kathryn to her wife, apparently, when the topic had come up, and maybe I’m beginning to like the commander, at long last. No, Commander Troi and I hadn’t hit it off well at first, not at all. She’d contacted me, the first week of June, and I’d taken the call in that non-descript, if spacious, apartment Starfleet had appointed us after _Voyager _had left for Mars. It has a balcony, that’s about all it has going for it. Which is why I’d thought about searching – but I digress.__

“You’re _Voyager’s_ counselor, right?” she had asked me. “I’m Commander Deanna Troi. The one all the reports go to in the end.” Her smile had been more than a little self-deprecating, but, given how I hadn’t known her, that could have been a ruse as easily as the opposite.

I’d taken one look at her eyes. Betazoid. “I’ve heard the name,” I’d smirked. “Yes, I’m Marie Vey. What can I do for you?” 

“You’re aware that I’m counseling Captain Janeway,” she’d said, right away.

So, no questions about the _Voyager_ crewmembers I’d been counseling, then. “I am.”

“I haven’t seen a report on her among _Voyager’s_ crew files.”

“I’d guess there are quite a lot of crewmembers you haven’t seen reports on,” I’d answered, a bit irritated, I must admit. It had been barely two weeks that we’d set down, after all. And then she’d asked me, quite bluntly, whether I could give her insights on Captain Kathryn Janeway’s character.

I’d debated for a bit, then told her the truth. “Not from a professional point of view.”

“I see.” That had been it. No further questions on Kathryn, a few enquiries about settling in, things like that. Professional enough, but still, we’d hit it off on a wrong note. But, back to topic. Althea is already going on, and I feel I can like her, if not her wife.

“In fact,” she says matter-of-factly, “now would be a good time.”

Kathryn almost loses her mouthful of coffee. “Now?” 

“You’re about to ovulate,” Althea shrugs with a small smile, as if it were the most commonplace thing to talk about. I laugh out loud. Good thing that their two kids have already rushed from the table. 

“I am-” Kathryn says weakly.

“Don’t worry, ‘now’ doesn’t mean ‘right this minute’, but-” Althea shrugs again, unperturbed as anything, “-tonight, tomorrow at the latest.” Well, _that’s_ reassuring – and I can see that feeling echoed quite clearly on Kathryn’s face, too. “Or in four weeks, I suppose.”

“How…” I have to clear my throat. “How would it work? I mean, how would you…”

“Please spare me explaining the technicalities.” Althea winks at me, then rolls her eyes helplessly. “I’ve always been more concerned about what I do, not how to call it. The… shall we say ‘course of events’, would be for both of you to relax and let me do my-” she wriggles her fingers, “-magic.” 

“Magic.” Oh, I love Kathryn’s voice when it’s deprecating like this. Well. I love it, period. 

“Basically, yes,” Althea tilts her head. “I need to touch both of you, skin to skin, for which your being relaxed would be a boon, and then I’ll send Marie’s genome to your ovum.” A pained look crosses Kathryn’s face, and, in response, a lopsided smile Althea’s. “Really, I can’t go into more detail. Beverly could explain it better, I think.” Then her face lights up in a true smile. “You could watch, though, for want of a better word.”

“Watch?” And _that_ , now, sounds fascinating. 

“Yes, I could take your minds along, so to speak.” Althea doesn’t look Betazoid; but however human she looks, she very obviously isn’t. 

“Marie,” Kathryn’s hand is on my forearm. “We need to talk about this. Please. Don’t get-”

I lean over to kiss her. “You’re right. Of course we do.” I glance at Althea. “Do you mind if we…” Althea waves both hands no and rises from the table, grinning like a shark. “Time,” I go on, “does seem to be a factor-” Kathryn’s mouth, opening to protest, catches my eye, “-which doesn’t mean I want to jump into this.” I smile at my wife. “It doesn’t have to be now. Not this month, nor the next, nor at any other time before we feel ready for it.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Kathryn says gracefully. 

When the door closes behind Althea, I turn to her. “Kathryn, we really don’t need to rush this. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression-”

“ _Do_ you feel ready?” 

The seriousness of her question makes me swallow the quick ‘of course’ on my lips. “Personally,” I say after a moment, looking at my fingers smoothing the edge of the table, “I’ve felt ready for a long time. If this were just about me, I’d do it in the blink of an eye, but it isn’t. It’s about you, too, and us. As I said, I’d love to start a family with you, but I’d also like to give us time if you feel we, or you, need it. I… I’m impulsive, you see. But I want to think this through, be sure that we both feel okay with it.” My eyes come up to hers. “What about you?”

Kathryn sighs. Then, “I feel pretty much the same,” she offers, with a small smile. “Our honeymoon… the idea of spending time with you is wonderful, drifting along for a while with nothing on our agenda. And yet you were right, I don’t take to that very well.” She smirks at me, and I right back at her. “I do need something to do, and I look forward to getting dirty in _Voyager’s_ bowels afterwards. From what B’Elanna tells me, they’re dead set to meet that three-month deadline, too, which would give me about five more months of shakedown with my new crew before going on maternity leave. That sounds reasonable enough to me.”

Hell and heaven in a tangle. Two days ago she’d claimed to still be thinking her way through this, and now she’s making plans. Right into the deep end of things, eh? “And our kid would be born in May,” I muse, delighting in how her face lights up. “You might even end up sharing your birthday with her.”

“I thought about that too.” Her voice is dreamy again. God, but I love her. “You know…” her eyes snap back to me, and she takes a deep breath. “You’re impulsive, I’m impatient, and the time will never be exactly right. Let’s do it.”

And every time I think I can’t possibly love her more, she pulls a stunt like this.


	3. Unfurling

Wow.

I can’t say anything else. What I’ve just experienced…

Wow. 

Talk about mind-blowing.

Althea led us to another room in their home after we told her; a calm one, it was – somewhat Mediterranean in style, not the riotous, multi-colored variant, but the clear, sea-green and blue-skied and white-walled one. It even smelled of the sea, for some reason, and at one point I’d have sworn I heard seagulls cry, but I digress. 

She asked us to make ourselves comfortable on the large, backless sofa she had in there, to bare our stomachs. Well, as you do when you get told to get comfortable and don’t have a backrest, we lounged, while she entered something into a medical station mounted on the wall. Then she walked over, sat down next to us, closed her eyes in concentration and… touched us.

It tingled, and I closed my eyes. Then I felt something tugging at my mind. Not what I’d felt at Tuvok’s touch, back on _SriSri’s Dancery_ , no, this was at once more ethereal and more profound. _That’s me_ , I heard Althea’s chuckle in my mind, affirming my assumption. _Come along, now._

_How?_

_Well, just think about it,_ she went on laughing. _It’s all in the mind, after all._

So I imagined taking her outstretched hand, as it were, and boy, did I have no idea what was in store for me.

You see, I… I felt – saw – sensed – I don’t know which word to use, but it was Kathryn, I knew that instantly. And she was just as awed as I was. 

Again, this was nothing like a Vulcan mind meld. This was… Imagine walking along a gorge, in shadow. You see the sun shine, somewhere above you, and you hear a big waterfall somewhere ahead. And even though you can imagine what it must be like when you arrive, by the memory of how sunlight feels on your skin, and by the sound that gets louder and louder until it fills the air and hammers against your eardrums, nothing, _nothing_ can prepare you for the moment you turn that last corner.

God, but Kathryn… she is… great. Mind, heart, drive, compassion. Maybe not a waterfall, but she has something of the liquid element in her. Its depth when allowed to pool, its irresistible force when moving, its soothing coolness when you slip in – so maybe I am getting carried away. But heavens, how can I not, when that moment… When I realized what was happening, whom I was sensing, for want of a better word, my love bloomed, _burst_ from me like a – I don’t know, I can’t say. A ray of light sounds far too small, a supernova far too dramatic. And since I know just how much love I’m capable of, amazing as it was to experience it this way, I wasn’t alarmed or something. I knew it was only me, something I am familiar with. But I guess it hit her unprepared. And then-

You see, she loves me too. Alright, alright, so I knew that before. She says so, doesn’t she? Looks at me in that way she has, and holds me near. She married me, for crying out loud.

But that is ever a singular experience, hearing it, seeing it, feeling the ring on your finger, even feeling lips on your mouth. And believe me, even if you happen to have someone whom you can love so deeply and joyfully, that emotion is dwarfed by what Althea gave us. The knowledge – in an even more intimate, and yet completely different sense than the biblical – of each other. The knowledge that this, _all_ of _this_ is Kathryn, that _this_ is how she loves me…

I can’t even begin to put it into words. Althea has it right when she says she concentrates on what she does rather than how to call it, and even if I found words – there’s something that the philosophers say, and it’s true: It’s impossible to discuss a subject without a common frame of reference. Indeed. Go meet Althea, and ask her to do the same for you and the one you love, and maybe, just maybe – but then you don’t need to talk or listen to me to understand.

The best I can do is that it was a touching of souls, although I do think we kissed, too – on some level, our bodies work independently, after all, and it’s what you do, isn’t it? It was a bit like when you know someone well enough to know what they’re thinking, without them having to say. Like that, only more so. And differently. I knew Kathryn, in that moment. Perceived her essence – her soul, if you will. Her stubbornness, her passion, her joy at what was happening, and, God, her love for me – and, far in the distance, the dark brooding clouds of the things that aggrieve her still. She noticed me noticing, and agreed they were there, but assured me they were of no importance here and now. And her assurance was true, I felt that, too. If nothing else, that moment confirmed the trust I’d given her at her request, the trust that she would handle them without my worrying. 

After an eternity of reveling in this, I felt Althea nudge us, like a slight poke in the ribs, and with an amused smile too, or the equivalent of it. _On?_

 _Yes_ – that thought was Kathryn’s; impatient woman. I could have stayed where we were for quite a while. 

So, like kids on a sorcerer’s hands, we took off and flew, or plunged, into my body, past skin and organ, past blood vessel and cell membrane, until Althea scooped up something incredibly complex, an air of intent concentration about her. _Yes, that’s it_ , she nodded to our unvoiced guess. _Now…_ And off we were again. 

You see, this is nothing but a simile, just as the waterfall was. We never left that room, never went flying anywhere. Never saw mitochondria, never touched ribosomes. Althea explained, afterwards, that it was partly her suggestions, partly our preconceptions. In any case, what we saw next – I’ll stick with that word, for want of another – was the moment of conception of our daughter. 

And if I’d been blown away before, it paled against what I felt then. Here was Kathryn, at my side, no – closer than that, infusing me like warm sunlight, here was the moment when two complexities became a new and different one, here was the moment when Kathryn’s love flared, mine answered, and we both cradled that newness like a falling snowflake, anxious at its fragility, awed at what we were witnessing.

 _Oh, don’t be afraid,_ Althea laughed. _It happens every day, after all._

 _Yes, but,_ I answered, thinking of an expression I’d read, of _‘that miracle, which, though it is most commonplace, is a miracle nonetheless’._

I could feel both Althea’s and Kathryn’s approval of the sentiment, and my wife’s small spike of impressed amusement at how I immediately had the book, and the placement of the quote in it, appear in my thoughts. Then her thoughts turned back, and I fell in love all over again, with her incredibly gentle raptness when she regarded the… well, the zygote, clinical and unfitting as the word might sound.

When I opened my eyes again, Kathryn was ahead of me – leaning over me, that gentleness still suffusing her features. For all that she can be incredibly business-like, for all her stern captain’s (or admiral’s) demeanor, gentle is something she does very well, this wife of mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mentioned book is _The Seeress of Kell_ , from the Malloreon, by David (and Leigh) Eddings.
> 
> Oh, and the common frame of reference? Well, you know who said _that_ , right?


	4. Wonder (August 28th)

Standing in front of San Francisco Spaceport and looking up at its imposing domed entrance, I can barely contain my exhilaration. Mars, and Luna after that. And Kathryn and me, alone for two blessed weeks. And a baby on the way. Oh, Althea had cautioned us to stay level-headed; not every fertilized ovum implants, after all. But I swear Kathryn has recorded, in her head, every word Althea had said, and I’d also swear she’s counting the days until a medical tricorder and its hormonal readings will tell her whether things are proceeding according to that script. I am excited about the whole thing, too, but not like Kathryn seems to be. Then again, it isn’t my body, is it? 

Our preparations were strange – we didn’t need to pack clothes, after all, only an iso chip with the patterns of what we wanted to take. So the bag slung across my shoulder is weirdly light, considering we’re going on a two-week journey. That spaceport is something else, too. I feel like a child in a chocolate factory, all wide-eyed and marveling, and Kathryn delights in showing me the sights. It’s a good thing she set away a couple of hours for this – no matter how much she teases me not to get lost on her in all the hubbub. 

We meet Tom (full lieutenant now, two gold pips shining) at a restaurant that, predictably, is not much better than the one in Frankfurt had been, and then walk – no, saunter to the shuttle. No public transport for this admiral, at least not this time – Kathryn has insisted on taking me in a small craft (well, I say ‘small’. The thing is big as a bus, if far sleeker), and Tom seems in on her plan as much as I’m not. They take the front seats, going to the pre-flight routines quickly and efficiently, and I crane my neck to see anything at all when we lift off. Then Kathryn turns around to me and rises out of her chair.

“Come on up, then.” Her smile is brilliant, her gesture inviting.

“Can I-” I swallow. “Aren’t there security precautions or something?”

“Not while I’m at helm,” Tom grins, “unlike others I could mention.”

“No sniping at superior officers, Lieutenant,” Kathryn wags a finger at him, and even I have read enough of _Voyager’s_ mission logs to know whom he’s alluding to.

“Let’s just say that this shuttle won’t get lost, crashed, or flown to bits,” he replies, quite unconcerned. “But really, Marie, you can come up here, no problem. Might get you a better view of our route, if not of your wife.” 

I match his grin. “I see my wife every day. An aerial view of California, not that often.” Unfortunately, I have to pass by Kathryn on my way to the front seat, and she’s quick to retaliate. “Ouch.”

“Got that coming, honey,” she chants, back turned and wagging that finger at me now. Tom’s chin drops, though I don’t know whether it’s at the tone of her voice or at ‘honey’. 

I shrug and raise my eyebrows at him, in that universal gesture of ‘I’m just as appalled as you are’, and that quick, his grin is back. “Well, here you go,” he says, “sit down, enjoy, and don’t push any buttons.”

My nose is almost touching the windows, actually, and I switch between sitting back to look upwards, or standing up to look at what we’re leaving behind. Tom’s not going up through the atmosphere, though, but heading inland. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, just a little sight-seeing,” he shrugs, then gestures grandiosely. “Your loving wife figured we should start at Yosemite.”

“Oh my…” I do touch the window when he flies us across oceans of conifers, and drops low into a valley I’ve seen pictures of, but never visited. 

“I’m not going slow enough, am I,” he laughs, and loops back to fly along the valley a second time. The view is amazing, plain and simple. I am like that. Give me the vastness of nature, in all her forms. Give me majestic, give me grandiose. I’m surprised that Kathryn knows, is all. I wonder what else she has in store for me.

“It’s breathtaking,” I manage, and feel a hand on my arm. I touch its back, but I can’t tear my eyes from what I see through the windows. Then Tom heads back and south, and finally slows the shuttle to hover above a sea of green.

“Ready to beam down?”

“Huh?” I’ll admit it’s not the most elegant of sounds, but I can’t help it. 

Kathryn laughs and tugs at my elbow. “Come on, Marie, let’s get down there!”

“But-”

“That’s an order, Miss Vey.” Oh, the laughter in her voice.

“Hey,” I protest, “you can’t order your wife like that, can you?” I turn to Tom. “Can she?” 

He holds up both his hands, “I’m not saying anything, Marie. My wife still thinks she outranks me, _and_ she answers to yours. And I _know_ they conspire to get me into trouble, no matter how much they pretend to be concerned about my health.” Kathryn, ahead of me, just laughs at him. 

“And anyway,” I mutter as I step up to her, “I’m not a Miss any longer, am I?” What I see when I rematerialize quite takes my breath away again, though. And my thoughts off any musings about how I might be addressed in future. 

Trees. Not just any trees, though. Giants. Giants of trees. I feel more than dwarfed. I feel… humbled. Awed. I feel like dropping to my knees and worshipping these… 

“Do behold the King Sequoia!” Kathryn slowly recites, as if she’s reading my thoughts. “Behold! Behold! seems all I can say. Some time ago I left all for Sequoia and have been and am at his feet, fasting and praying for light, for is he not the greatest light in the woods, in the world? Where are such columns of sunshine, tangible, accessible, terrestrialized?”

I shake my head in wonder, then slowly move up to the nearest one, to touch his rough, cool bark. It must be at least ten meters wide, this column of sunshine, and at a whim, I spread my arms and close my eyes and press myself against it, skin to lumpy skin. A bird calls, somewhere, but other than that, the moment is perfectly still, and I feel myself dissolving into happiness. 

So I’m a nature-loving girl. 

So sue me. 

Kathryn’s eyes are radiant when I turn around to look at her. “If you call me a tree-hugger, I’ll make you regret it,” I growl, and she throws her head back and laughs. 

“Permission to hug you right back?” she says, then, and I nod, and she does. 

We stroll in silence across this enchanted place for a while, then Tom beams us back up and I slip into the left seat again, still without words. 

“Next stop, Death Valley,” he says, but his smile is filled with his own wonder rather than levity. 

Once in this desolate place, he’s back in his element, zooming across landscapes both bizarre and beautiful. Then I detect something up ahead. “Isn’t this… I don’t know what it’s called, but aren’t those the stones that move without people knowing why?”

“Racetrack Playa,” Tom nods and dives lower so I can see why it’s called that. “We still don’t, by the way.”

“You don’t? But-” 

“You know,” Kathryn cuts in, “as a kid, I died of curiosity about them, and as a teenager I really, really couldn’t believe how on Earth they could have stopped studying the phenomenon, but… you see, Marie, they wanted to keep the magic alive.” 

My jaw drops. “Never.”

“Oh yes,” she smiles. “And by now, I can understand the impulse. Not everything needs an explanation, after all.” Then, to Tom, “and if I ever catch you repeating that to anybody, Lieutenant, I’ll make sure you’ll never fly so much as a broomstick anymore, much less design one.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Admiral.”

“Good man.”

The expanses of multicolored, bizarrely eroded rock are every bit as amazing as the trees of Yosemite have been. Then where does Tom take us next but to the Grand Canyon, turning through curves tight enough to make me dizzy.

“Don’t worry,” he laughs, “I used to do this as a boy, all the time, and this time, I even have a permit.” I wordlessly pat his shoulder, and again, he loops back to for another, slower run.

“I have to admit,” Kathryn muses from behind us, “it’s more interesting this way. Much better than hiking, at any rate. Faster, too.” To my raised eyebrows, she elaborates, “my father took me there when I was nine. I didn’t like it one bit, mostly because he made me polish my boots afterwards, I suppose.”

“Well, you won’t get dusty this time, Admiral,” Tom grins, sweeping upwards to give us a birds-eye view.

“It’s beautiful.” Again, I touch the window. “Where are we going now?”

“Oh, just another of my childhood playgrounds,” he tosses off, fingers dancing across the consoles. “I really wish this were the Delta Flyer, though.”

“Flying’s more fun with joysticks?” I tease him, but I can see their appeal. Touching a button to bank left or right isn’t as immediate as tilting a manual control, after all. 

“Definitely.”

“You know, I always wanted to learn to fly an airplane,” I sigh. “But these… they don’t call out to me, for some reason.” We share a conspiratorial grin. 

“Holodeck? On Mars?”

“You’re on.” He pulls off more daring maneuvers around the rocky columns of Monument Valley, and then we finally sweep upwards. 

Seeing the atmosphere thin, darken, turn to star-speckled black is breathtaking all over again. I’ll even admit to a tear or two, and another one when Tom gives me the aft view on a screen in front of me. Earth, with, yes, space stations and starships and more traffic in orbit than I’d ever thought possible. Strange, to see it that way, somehow. And, in front of us, not space’s blackness, but a… a _traffic lane_ , hemmed by buoys and quite heavily travelled. Tom taps in a few commands and leans back, arms behind his head.

“Nothing to do until Mars, now,” he breathes. “So. who’s game for a game of something?”

* * *

It is marvelous – not seeing Mars in and of itself; Kathryn has been here often enough. But to see Marie’s wide-eyed wonder at things like leaving Earth’s atmosphere, flying across the orbital facilities of Utopia Planitia, or stepping off the shuttle onto Martian soil – _that_ makes Kathryn’s breath catch. A new take on things she always took for granted, certainly. A few quick, almost running steps bring Marie to the rim of the landing pad, and she kneels down to touch the red dust that’s beyond. 

Going after her more slowly, Kathryn watches her pat it and look at her fingers with an amazed smile. “Simply unbelievable,” she hears her mutter. Then, in one quick movement, Marie rises, turns, and hugs Kathryn, hard enough to be a different kind of breathtaking. “Thank you,” she says fervently, and several times.

That sense of wonder stays, too; through a tour of Utopia colony and landmarks both terraformed and original, and a visit to the Memorial Station and Mars Exploration Museum where Marie wanders between probes and vehicles and biosphere domes with every expression of delight. When Marie stops in front of a space suit and reads, on its little plaque, where it came from, that sense of wonder flares to a smile of almost blinding brightness. Kathryn sees Marie’s fingers twitch dozens of times, quite obviously itching to touch the exhibits the same way she touched Mars’ surface. She recognizes the impulse – to her, too, touch makes things just that much more real. 

Tom has left before they started the sightseeing, heading to the shipyard’s planetary residence to reunite with his family, but they’ve agreed to meet the day after tomorrow for a tour of the public parts of the shipyards and ‘as much of the restricted areas as we can get away with’, as he’d laughingly put it. Kathryn can’t condone that, naturally, but then again, Theo Patterson is in charge and he’ll probably turn a blind eye if she asked him. Maybe he’ll even let them aboard _Voyager_. What’s the use of wearing admiral’s bars when she can’t even pull off something like that? It’s not as if Marie didn’t know the ship already, in any case.

Finding their hotel and a restaurant takes a moment; Kathryn hasn’t been here for a while, after all. In the end, they settle for a quiet little diner offering Bajoran food, and, as Kathryn had hoped she would, Marie likes what’s on offer. 

“This still feels so incredible,” she says around a mouthful of hasperat. “I’m on Mars, for God’s sake, and eating food that’s from yet another planet.”

“We had Vulcan soup once,” Kathryn reminds her.

“No, your mother and Chakotay had. Far too bland for both of us, don’t you remember?” Marie’s eyes sparkle. “And this tea is terrific.”

“Jumja? Too sweet for me. Good thing they have-”

“-coffee,” Marie joins in, nodding. “They’ve probably downloaded the pattern just in case you turn up, you know.”

“Hm?”

“Didn’t you see the way they looked at you when we came in? They know exactly whom they’re serving.”

Kathryn purses her lips, feeling quite uncomfortable. “You don’t know that,” she replies, finally, and is answered by a long, patient look. She sighs, and with a small smile, pushes Marie’s glasses up her nose. “Don’t you think it’s time to change to contact lenses again? Or to have the Doctor fix your eyes for good?” 

“Why should I, when I like it so much when you push my glasses back where they belong?” Marie grins, and Kathryn can’t help the way the corner of her mouth comes up.

“Really,” she replies dryly. 

“Really.” Marie leans back and kicks out her legs. “So, what’s on the agenda for tonight and tomorrow, then?”

“You’ll see,” Kathryn smiles, and Marie’s eyes widen in delight.

“More surprises?” When Kathryn nods, they practically start to gleam. “Where did you find the _time_ , Kathryn? God, but I love it.” She takes Kathryn’s cup-less hand and squeezes it. “I simply love this. Thank you, my love.”

Kathryn shakes her head with another smile. “But we haven’t done anything yet, Marie.”

“Are you kidding? We’re on _Mars_!” She squeals. Marie actually squeals. As easy as it is, sometimes, to forget they’re almost a decade apart, today it’s very visible. Then again, wide-eyed and unabashed wonder was Kathryn’s reaction to Cologne Cathedral, too, wasn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quote about the Giant Sequoia that Kathryn recites is from John Muire.


	5. Turning (December 23rd)

So they do have snow in Indiana. Not enough for skiing, but just about sufficient for sledding. And they still celebrate Christmas. The Trois are spending the holidays here – oh, yes, Kathryn has invited her counselor and future first officer, and her family, and arrived yesterday night with the four of them in tow, and the Doctor, too. The Parises are coming on the twenty-sixth, and Harry isn’t sure whether he’ll be able to come. As the house is open until New Year’s Day, he has a fighting chance, though.

He’d tried, he really had. For six long months, he’d tried to revive his relationship with Libby, and yes, she had, too. It hadn’t worked, though, as much as we’d all crossed our fingers for the two of them. Heartbroken as he is, he’s staying with his parents at the moment. So, Kathryn’s offered him to stop by if he feels up to it, adding that he’s always welcome at her home. I’d barely managed to stop her from mentioning that Ellie will be here, too – Kathryn had caught that he’d been drawn to my best friend, but apparently not that it had been a futile endeavor. Ah well. 

Ellie, for her part, has been seeing a musician she’s met at one of those functions she’s organizing. I have yet to meet him, which is the downside of no longer living in San Francisco, I guess. I moved in with Gretchen a few weeks after Kathryn started to commute to Mars. That apartment never was home, and somehow, I didn’t want to be alone. Kathryn and I had spent most of our weekends here before, anyway, and it makes not much difference to commute to the Smithsonian from San Francisco or from here. Not quite as easy, though, to need to hop onto a transporter pad to see my best friend and her prospective boyfriend.

From what Ellie’s said, Ambassador Troi is on Betazed; apparently, there’s to be a major ceremony of thanksgiving for completing reconstructions after the war, and of course she needs to be there, but apparently she moaned for _weeks_ over not being able to spend that ‘lovely holiday’ with her ‘little ones’ – it what she calls all of them, son, daughter, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. It gets confusing sometimes, Ellie tells me. Phoebe and Unre and their kids have left for Betazed, too, for that festival and because Unre can’t stand the cold – well, Commander Troi doesn’t seem to like it either, but apparently there’s something Althea does to her physiology that has her bear it. Or maybe it’s Gretchen’s eggnog. Chakotay swears it’s why he’ll come – we expect him and Seven to arrive later today. Trying to get Seven to have a taste might be… an interesting challenge for the Days of Christmas. 

Gretchen, good host that she is, gracefully puts up with all the guests; the house is certainly large enough. It did seem gloomy after my sister-in-law and her family left in October, with only Gretchen and me sitting around the fire of a night, but in a way, it was nice, too. We got to know each other quite well; she taught me to knit, I fetched things or fed the fire when the chill got into her bones too much, we both scared the neighbor’s children on Halloween. She told me about Kathryn as a child, showed me videos and more pictures, and of course I took every advantage of that, even if it made me miss my own childhood mementos. 

From mid-November, Tom had pleaded an ever-growing workload, so we’ve stopped working on our holonovel, but Christmas preparations with my mother-in-law and her neighbors more than make up for that. I have a few recipes of my own on that laptop of mine, and especially the Schneiders love my German cookies to pieces – of course they would. They trace their roots back to seventeenth-century Hessian settlers, after all. And we don’t replicate those cookies, either. Oh no, every batch is lovingly handmade. You’d gain weight from the smell alone.

Kathryn is gaining weight, too – and she’s beginning to show. I can’t keep from grinning every time I notice, for whatever reason. Every Friday night, for instance, when she beams in from Earth’s Sol System Commute Station in Kourou. It’s hard to not see her for most of the week, but at least I have a few things to do here – ironing uniforms on Mars doesn’t sound too appealing, does it. And then she comes home and I notice the changes to her body, and they’re so fascinating, and… and I long to be there while they happen. I mean, I do have my chances every Saturday and Sunday, but it feels so strange – I feel strange. Remorseful, in a way, for not being there, much as she tells me to stop beating myself up. So I’ve stopped telling her, but I can’t stop feeling that way.

What I am able to watch completely takes my breath away – first thing to change, almost from the beginning, was her breasts’ sensitivity, of all things. I was amazed when she slapped my hands away, but, to tell the truth, so was she. Then she went for the PADDs Althea had given us, and we spend an interesting night sitting up and researching early pregnancy signs, for all that we’d planned to do something else entirely. 

It was a lot less fun, certainly, when the nausea started, the food aversions, the vomiting. I knew she had a hard time adapting to it. Working out a diet plan with the Doctor that kept up with her likes and dislikes and the changes to them, sometimes between morning and night of the same day, must have been a hell of a challenge. She held on to coffee, though (of course she did), or coffee ice cream if nothing else worked for her taste buds, and had the Doctor concoct something that keeps most of the caffeine out of the baby’s blood stream. Of course she did. And I was very civilized and understanding when she told me that she had to resort to other coffee variants than the four roasts I’d programmed for her replicator. Of course I was.

The Doctor, for his part, joyfully tells me that, for once, Kathryn Janeway doesn’t object to physicals – mostly out of burning curiosity, I’d say. And, which I found particularly sweet (and still do) – they send me videos, on top of Kathryn’s subspace messages. Apparently, work rooms on Starfleet vessels and in Starfleet facilities are equipped with cameras, and the Doctor can access them to record Kathryn’s physicals. With her assent, of course; by now they’re both talking as much to me as to each other while the Doctor goes through his checklist. Still, I feel… not excluded, but not really present, either. I’m not, after all. The fact that, so far, I’ve only heard our baby’s heartbeat via one of those recordings doesn’t help. 

Kathryn had a hard time of mood swings, and tiredness, too, in the first two months or so; and I tried to be mindful of the both, tried to appease her when she felt guilty about snapping at me or falling asleep on me in those two precious days – or less, if you deduct the two-hour counseling sessions she takes on Saturdays, and for a good reason. Kathryn’s emotions are on a rollercoaster, still, and not just because of hormones, and I worry whether conceiving a child in the middle of this has been a good idea. More so because we never talked about that aspect. Those two hours are two hours that we can’t spend together, true, but still and all, I do think they’re one reason that Kathryn is adapting so well to being back from her seven years of Delta Quadrant Hell. I do what I can, too, to help her emotionally, and somehow – I couldn’t believe it when we first noticed – Althea has done something to us that night she impregnated Kathryn’s ovum with my genome. 

When we returned to our hotel, that first night on Mars, and kissed, fully, her hand on my cheek, my hands cupping her neck as we so like to do, we _knew_ each other again, like we had back in Althea’s practice. It floored us both, and not just because it shone a light on the fact that we hadn’t kissed like that since we left the Troi home. A little bit of touch empathy, Althea had laughingly called it when we contacted her, and to consider it a gift. And it is. To know that I can go on experiencing Kathryn’s love this way is… beyond words, as I’ve said. To make love like that even more so, and I can’t keep from grinning whenever I think of… well. Let’s just say that finding out exactly what happens when we touch those lips of ours to different places of each other’s anatomy – you get the picture, don’t you? _And_ this gift has helped me convey my solicitousness to Kathryn whenever she was going through another bout of irritability or weepiness, or guilt about something. They have helped my occasional, completely irrational flash of jealousy, too. 

Yes. I, who prided herself so on never feeling jealous, on being too confident, too self-secure to ever feel uncertain of her partner’s love, I have moments when I wish Kathryn would never see that soft-spoken, patient, beautiful counselor ever again. No matter how much I know she loves me. No matter how much I know Commander Deanna Troi is not her type. No matter how much I know the counselor’s happily married. It’s damned irritating, and I try to battle it, but… what can I say? It’s there. I just hope it’ll not sneak up on me over Christmas. I don’t want to explain. I’m not sure I can.

The time we do have with each other, Kathryn and I try to use to the fullest – not in going places and doing things, but in indulging. In talks, walks, hugs – well yes, sex, too. And I feel so close to her then, and it almost makes up for five days apart, but… almost, right? And how can I bring up things like jealousy or listlessness during those times? No, I spend each Friday afternoon looking forward to my wife’s arrival; I won’t mar the time she can set apart for me with grumbling.

Kathryn, for her part, grumbled about quite a few things in her first trimester, most commonly about the constant need for bathroom breaks and catnaps, but since a few weeks, that has stopped, and she’s glowing. And glorious. Her hair seems almost a live thing, an entity apart from her. I loved it before, but now that she’s growing it again, I can’t get enough of it. It’s touching her shoulders now, and I tug out every tie or clasp she puts in it, running my hands through it to keep it out of her face when she complains. 

Her swelling belly is so incredibly beautiful to me, too – I take a picture of her, every Sunday morning, and she indulges me, leaning against the door between bedroom and bathroom in nothing but that flimsy nightgown of hers, arms above her head – so very, very breathtakingly, elegant creature that she is. And there’s a soft look on her face whenever she contemplates our daughter to come that I wish I could capture, too. She has become more patient in the face of a lens, but so far I’ve had bad timing, or bad luck, whenever I tried. 

Our marriage is a known fact by now – of course it would be, there were more than a hundred guests at our wedding, after all. Kathryn’s pregnancy, though, is only known to Admiral Nechayev, the Doctor, and Kathryn’s immediate relatives. Yes, alright, Althea knows, and her wife too, probably, but apart from that, we’ve kept it quiet. We plan to tell the _Voyager_ family, both old and new, over Christmas, in fact, and I guess there have been rumors (catnapping? Bathroom breaks?), but officially, it’s still a secret. I daresay B’Elanna knows, but I can’t say for certain, because I haven’t seen her since we were on Mars in September (and for her birthday, too). I do look forward to seeing her, and Tom, and Miral.

This Christmas feels strange, though. Earth still doesn’t really feel like home, even though Gretchen’s house does. I’ve taken to talking to Ellie in German lately, and she indulges me, but we’re talking so little, what with official ambassadorial Christmas gatherings and a new boyfriend and all that, and… well, maybe I feel a little lost. Not over the day, oh no – my days are quite sufficiently packed, too, but nights are bad. The bed’s too large, and the cushion smells of Kathryn’s hair, and because I change the sheets every Friday before she arrives, they carry her scent for the rest of the week. And sometimes it helps, and sometimes it doesn’t. 

Ah well. The door chime rings – I guess it’s Chakotay and Seven. And I still need to wrap my gifts. 

It’ll be alright.

* * *

Seven looks good – the old adage about marriage agreeing with someone really works here. Oh, she’s still her own self, certainly, cool and straight, but there’s a new quality in her eyes, a softness that Kathryn delights to see. And Chakotay couldn’t look happier if it rained mushroom soup – which it will, in a few minutes, at least in a manner of speaking, but that’s beside the point, isn’t it. 

“Welcome, the two of you,” Kathryn greets them, “come in, come in; oh, but it’s cold, isn’t it.” She ushers them in front of her with impatient gestures. “We’re all in the living room, swapping stories of the last months, and yours is the story I most want to hear. Where in the world have you been?”

“Kathryn, let them get their breaths, for heaven’s sake,” Gretchen laughs, embracing the commander’s broad shoulders. “Oh, it’s good to see you. Have you put on weight? It looks good on you!”

“Can’t seem to help it, seeing who’s cooking for me,” Chakotay sketches a bow to Seven, dimples full blown. 

“I know how you’re feeling,” Kathryn calls over her shoulder, walking towards the replicator for beverages, “I swear I gained a few kilos in those four weeks when I first met Marie.”

“Never,” the accused party says with dignity, then bumps Kathryn away from the replicator with her hip. “You’re not carrying a tray of anything as long as I’m here to do it for you.”

“Marie, for crying out loud, I’m pregnant, not incapacitated.” Kathryn throws up her hands. “Mom, you tell her.” Then she freezes, and slowly turns around to face the two newcomers.

Seven has only cocked an eyebrow – well, nothing can daunt a Borg, right. But the look on Chakotay’s face? Marie would probably call it ‘epic’. His smile is slow to spread, but all the more brilliant for it. Kathryn, meanwhile, berates herself for ruining the surprise she’d planned for him. Getting lost in his hug, she has to agree with her mother, though, on both counts – he has gained a bit, and it does suit him. 

“Congratulations, Kathryn.” He kisses her cheek, then passes her along, to be embraced by Seven, for the second time since their wedding – for the second time ever, if memory serves. Seven obviously is accustomed to hugging humans – or one human, at least, a larger, broader-shouldered one. Her arms around Kathryn’s shoulders and back are gentle and careful, just as the first time around, and just like back then, it brings tears to Kathryn’s eyes.

Chakotay, meanwhile, just grins at the two of them, then steps to Troi’s side. “Bet you didn’t expect something like this, did you, when you accepted the invitation.” He hands the commander a cup of hot chocolate when Marie holds out the tray to them. “Thanks, Marie – here you go, Commander.”

“Oh, I knew about this – well, the pregnancy at least,” Troi chuckles, accepting the beverage. “Thank you, Commander.” 

“For the love of all things nice and easy, let’s not stand on formalities here, shall we?” Althea appears from the kitchen and winds her arms around Troi’s neck. Greeting Chakotay with her broad smile, she goes on, pointing a finger, “I’m Althea and this is Deanna.”

“Chakotay, then,” he smiles easily, and extends a hand towards his own wife to draw her into this conversation, too. 

“Well, if we’re all airlocking rank here… I’m Kathryn,” Voyager’s commanding officer takes leave when her former first officer and her new one beam at her.

“Marie,” a familiar alto rings out from the kitchen, closely followed by, “and Gretchen, too, only she’s currently tasting to season the soup, so she can’t tell you herself.”

“I would appreciate if you’d call me Seven, too. I find the companionship implied quite pleasing,” a cool voice adds, though not as detached as Kathryn remembers. 

“Would that be everyone,” Deanna smiles, “or is someone hiding in the attics from this attack of first names?”

“Nope,” Marie reappears, carrying a stack of soup plates, “that’s all for now. Of course you’ll have to go through that dance once more when Ellie arrives, and another time when the Parises get here.” She flashes a smile to the Doctor, “and whenever you have decided on a name, Doc.”

“Well,” he huffs, “I could go the same way you did, Healer, and just choose a translation of my profession, but I personally think that would be cheating.”

“Pardon me?” Chakotay blinks, and the Doctor huffs again.

“‘Althea Kalliste’ means-”

“-‘beautiful healer’,” Deanna chuckles, nudging her wife. “Which I, personally, think is a perfectly apt description. And she didn’t choose it, Doctor, it chose her.”

“Yeah,” Althea drawls, “and if you’re all nice, I’ll tell the story.”

Kathryn, still not seeing how the Doctor and Althea might ever _get_ along if both of them _go_ along, leaves for the kitchen to get cutlery, and returns to find Chakotay and Deanna sharing a wide grin – something she’s never seen on her new first officer’s face before. “What exactly are you two laughing about, then?”

“Trade secrets,” he has the gall to answer, “like how to withstand that glare, for example.”

“Oh, glaring doesn’t work with counselors anyway,” Marie breezes, passing them by with a hot pad and a big ladle. 

“I remember that conversation,” Chakotay chuckles, then apparently catches Gretchen’s eyes and heads to the kitchen. A moment later, he returns with a huge tureen, and Gretchen on his heels, carrying a basket of bread. “It smells fantastic, Gretchen,” he says, “may I assume that it’s-”

“Mushroom soup, yes,” she affirms, touching his arm affectionately when he sets down the masterpiece in the center of the table. A moment later, Althea walks in from the hall, two rosy-cheeked and scrubbed kids in tow. 

“You’ve met our kids at the wedding, haven’t you?” she asks Seven. 

“Indeed.” A blond head tilts downwards. “We sang together. It was enjoyable.”

“Hi, Seven!” Yann, all of seven years old, hugs those long legs while his sister, much more restrained at ten, smiles up at the regal face. _It’s a shame Naia and Ennin aren’t here, they’d like each other enormously_ , Kathryn muses. 

For all that Althea and Deanna look quite alike, their two children are rather dissimilar. Oh, Andrea certainly is her mothers’ child, but Yann – well, Kathryn has heard the rumors. You can’t sit on a commuter’s shuttle twice a week for nearly four months and not hear them, however much you are an admiral and – face it – a celebrity. And she’s got to concede that it is highly probable that outside DNA has been used to conceive Yann – two female genomes can’t produce a male child, after all. But then again, after reading and experiencing for herself just what Healer Kalliste can do, Kathryn wouldn’t put anything past her. She runs her hand across her swell, not quite absentmindedly, but not quite consciously either. 

No, the youngest member of the Troi family looks different from both his mothers, his eyes a speckled amber, his curls brown rather than black, and almost as tall as his older sister, already. He seems set to grow for a good while yet, too. It’s probably the reason why the pool seems tied between Riker and Picard, although Kathryn can’t believe either. Oh, Will the Thrill Riker would probably go for it in a happy heartbeat, and the kid seems boisterous enough, but that could be Althea’s legacy, as well. Yann’s coloration, meanwhile, seems to say ‘Picard’, but… no, Kathryn can’t reconcile it. Captain Jean-Luc Picard is not a family man, is he?

And finally, the healer herself reminds Kathryn of no one so much as Kes, for all that she looks and behaves nothing like the Ocampan. Granted, Kes was as much of a waif, and as beautiful, as Althea is, but there it ends – a different form of beauty to begin with, and different colors, too: black curls instead of blond, green eyes instead of blue. And, compared to Kes’ quiet friendliness, Althea is exuberant, raucous even. But her abilities… Having seen what Kes was capable of, Kathryn has long stopped to associate physical size with prowess, and still, Healer Althea Kalliste Troi’s service record has been the most fantastic thing Kathryn’s read in the last nine months. It lists her as human with just a year of birth instead of a full stardate, and no place of origin either. Which, given the state of some human colonies, is not that unusual in and of itself, if it weren’t for the fact that, genome or no, Healer Kalliste can’t possibly _be_ human. Ah well. Maybe, one day, _if we’re all nice_ , Kathryn thinks with a smile, she’ll solve that mystery.

Kathryn is shaken out of those musings, however, when she has to scramble to get a place close to the tureen – oh, but she’s hungry. _Thank goodness that the queasiness is behind me_ , she thinks while filling her plate, _that soup smells delicious_. It’s fascinating how much more pronounced her sense of smell is, even if the medical PADDs had listed it as an effect of pregnancy. Even if there are times when she could quite do without it. 

“That soup is wonderful, Gretchen,” Chakotay echoes Kathryn’s thought. And that means something, coming from him, Kathryn knows, proud of how her mother enjoys the compliment. 

“Thank you, Chakotay,” Gretchen answers, “but it’s as much Marie’s work as mine; she collected them mushrooms, back in – when was it, September?”

“Or thereabouts,” Marie waves her spoon, “the only thing I remember are the buckets of rain we had that day. Those are really, really hard-earned mushrooms, Mister.” She points the same spoon at Chakotay.

“I can certainly taste that,” he chuckles.

“Are you saying my soup is watered, Commander?” Gretchen teases, and he groans. 

“Spirits save me – not at all, Gretchen, really. It’s the best mushroom soup I’ve ever eaten.”

“Don’t push it, Chakotay. My mother thinks about flattery the same as I do.” Bronze as his skin is, he _can_ blush, and Kathryn is determined to bring it about, one of these days. 

Not today, though. “Oh, this isn’t flattery,” he says, wide-eyed. “It’s the honest truth – what’s in there, Gretchen; thyme?”

“Spith basil, actually,” Gretchen answers, to splutters around the table. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”

“I’d never thought that something containing Talaxian herbs could be this delicious,” Kathryn smirks. “Your idea, Marie?”

“Ellie’s. We’re to save her some of the soup, too.”

“Well, she’d better hurry,” Althea says, helping herself to another plateful. “When is she coming, anyway?”

“Tomorrow, I hope. There is a final pre-Christmas function at the Xelatian embassy tonight that she needs to supervise. Something about food containers made from holographic ice, from what I’ve heard.” 

“Oh, that’s interesting,” the Doctor chimes up while Marie finishes her plate, cleaning it with a torn bit of bread. 

Seeing her wife’s fingers handle that morsel so deftly… no, it must be the soup that has Kathryn so hot all of a sudden. Or maybe not. She doesn’t manage to catch Marie’s eye, though, while table conversation starts to revolve around holo-technology and Marie’s and Tom’s project. 

Plans for the next days, as far as anyone has made any, include sitting around the fire, sharing company as often as possible, heading out to chop down a tree tomorrow, heading back with all limbs attached, wood nymphs willing, and trimming it in a concerted effort. After that, what will happen is anyone’s guess, though Kathryn assumes it will include singing, storytelling and more food than should be legal. Oh, and rampant sentimentality – Gretchen is blinking tears away whenever her eyes roam the packed living room, and Kathryn is planning to blame her own weepiness on hormones if anyone should ask. Marie seems affected, too, every now and then, even if, right now, she’s laughing at something Andrea has said. Those two kids clamber around her like Ennin and Naia do, and that’s one pre-natal worry less – she’ll be a great parent, Kathryn is sure of that. Time for that tissue box again. She finds it empty, though, and runs into Deanna in front of the replicator.

“Thank you for inviting us, Kathryn,” the half-Betazoid says, voice low and serious for all the twinkle in her eye. “It’s an amazing experience.”

“Is this your first Christmas, then?” At least Kathryn’s had the time to wipe her eyes, not that it matters much with an empath. But it’s about the appearance of things, isn’t it, and of course a counselor would understand about that. 

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant,” Deanna answers, eyebrows raised. “We had Christmas parties on the _Enterprise_ , and I simply loved them. No, it’s…” Deanna breaks off, searching for words. “I know Christmas is considered a family thing, and I feel honored that you’re including us in that definition. And the… tapestry of emotion, as it were, is incredible. I don’t regret leaving the _Enterprise_ , but I do miss the friends I had there, and a Christmas without them loomed so threateningly in front of me… and then you asked us to join you.” Her smile is brilliant. Briefly, a fleeting frown mars it, but it’s gone so quickly that Kathryn isn’t sure whether it was there at all.

“Well, after falling so easily into the roles of forensic expert and defendant, counselor and counseled, and CO and XO, I though maybe we could extend our palette, you see.” Kathryn quirks her head, points and smiles, “and your children seem to like my wife. I’m beginning to wonder if she might not be magnetic, somehow – something similar happened with my niece and nephew, too.”

Deanna laughs at that. “At least Marie seems to be at ease with them. I know people who have that same magnetism and yet shy from children as though they were Tarkassian razorbeasts.”

“Not a good combination,” Kathryn replies as they walk back towards the living room. 

“I say.”

Back on the sofa, Kathryn is silent while conversation surges around her. Deanna’s comments about Christmas aboard the _Enterprise_ have woken memories that don’t really lend themselves to a festive mood, and yet she can’t shake them. Christmas on _Voyager_ … She lightly shakes her head at the counselor’s solicitous look, and, with her usual empathic insight, Deanna refrains from pushing the issue.


	6. Realization (February 20th, 2379)

“Comm-” No. Personal matter, personal address. “Deanna, do you have a minute?”

“Of course, Kathryn.” Betazoid senses? Counselor’s attentiveness? Or the solicitousness of someone who’s becoming a good friend? “I’ll be right over.”

Moments later, the door chime sounds. The location of the first officer’s quarters hadn’t changed, after all, only their size – and the soundproofing in the bulkheads. Usually the thought made Kathryn smile, but not today. She continues staring at the monitor that had turned black a few minutes ago, absentmindedly rubbing her lower back. “Come in.”

Deanna Troi stood a lot taller on duty than off it, and that’s another thought that, usually, would amuse Kathryn – they both apparently kicked off their shoes the moment their quarters’ doors closed behind them. They both feel dwarfed compared to Kathryn’s new second-in-command, too - but then Andorians will be that tall, and besides, size hadn’t been a criterium of choosing Lieutenant Commander Thlinn ch’Vlossen anyway. 

So, since it hadn’t been a duty request to come over, the half-Betazoid obviously hadn’t bothered to don her shoes again for the ten meters or so of walking. “Something is troubling you,” Deanna says quietly.

“You can say that again,” Kathryn sighs. “I was talking to my mother just now, and to Marie. Something’s wrong there.”

“In what way?”

Narrowing her eyes, Kathryn shakes her head slowly, then grits her teeth. _Face it._ “I’m worried about Marie.” _Not enough, dammit._ “I think… I don’t know, I might just be imagining it, you know. You’d know better than I, but…” As if it weren’t a completely rotten idea at all, to ask Marie to talk to Deanna, heavens no. 

“Tell me your observations. Maybe I can help putting them into perspective.” 

Kathryn gestures her over to the sofa, detouring to the replicator to get coffee and café au lait. “First of all, I’m not at all certain whether I interpret things correctly. My own experiences might be coloring how I read this, you see.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Deanna gives her a small, reassuring smile. 

“My mother said that Marie is getting short. Irritable. Irrational, sometimes. At first, Mom contributed it to weariness – you know, when you’re too tired to keep up a good front?” Deanna nods. “She guesses that Marie sleeps badly,” Kathryn goes on. “Apparently, Mom’s heard her go to the kitchen, or outside, a few times at night. And Marie did look exhausted when we spoke, just now. Then Mom said that Marie snapped at one of the Schneider’s kids yesterday, when he suggested they dress up for Carnival. I don’t get that; she always liked Carnival.” Deanna nods again. She knows how Kathryn and Marie met by now, they’ve talked about it. Quite a few times, actually, from different angles.

“So, just now, I asked her about what she’ll do for Carnival, on the pretense I’d just realized it was that time of the year, and she closed down on me.”

“Ended the call?” Deanna arches her eyebrows.

“No, just… closed down.” Kathryn waves a hand vaguely, wondering how to express it.

“I think I understand,” Deanna tells her. “She became impassive? Emotionless?”

“She became a goddamn stranger,” Kathryn exhales, dropping backwards into the couch and running one hand over her face, the other over her back. “For a moment, it was terrifying. And then she smiled, and it looked completely _wrong_ , and told me she was thinking of meeting with Ellie, which I know can’t be true, because Ellie-”

“- is organizing the party celebrating my mother’s thirtieth anniversary as Betazed’s ambassador to the UFP,” Deanna nods. “Mom’s running her ragged, I know. Well, she’s running everyone ragged.”

“Marie asked me,” Kathryn goes on, staring at the ceiling, “if we had anything going in terms of Carnival, but I could tell she wasn’t really listening to my answer. I couldn’t bear to hear her talk the way she talked, so I said I had something important to ask Gretchen, and she just nodded and left to catch my mother.”

“And she normally wouldn’t do that?”

“She didn’t even ask me how I was, pregnancy-wise.” And Kathryn still can’t stop shaking her head at the memory. It had been a first. 

“And what did your mother say to all of that?”

“That Marie hadn’t talked to Ellie in days, maybe even weeks. And my mother suspects that Marie hasn’t talked to the Smithsonian professor either, for a while. She’s worried, Deanna. She’s thinking the same thing as I am, I’m willing to bet. Of course, her perception could be biased, too, but…” A sigh. “I don’t know.”

“You’re thinking depression, the both of you, aren’t you?”

Kathryn inhales sharply, but this is exactly what she’s called Deanna over for, after all. “Yes.”

“It’s possible,” Deanna nods again, slowly. “Her situation could be read as being in favor of it.”

“I realize my being away-” Try as she might, Kathryn can’t keep the strain out of her voice. 

“Oh, that’s not exactly what I mean,” Deanna interrupts her. “Not in the first place, anyway.” She hesitates, then goes on, eyes grave, “it’s a bit ironic, even. I’m sure if Marie observed someone acting like this, in circumstances like these, the alarms would go off in her mind, too. I mean, she warned you about what could happen upon your return, right?” Kathryn’s turn to nod. “Well, Marie hasn’t returned, not really. She’s somewhere that is called Earth, but it doesn’t look and feel like the Earth she knows, and, what’s more, it isn’t.”

“Because she’s from another timeline.” Realization spreads cold fingers through Kathryn’s stomach. _I should have thought of that._

“Yes. And she finds herself in a position where she can’t really do her job, while her best friend takes off like the proverbial Phoenix, both with her new post and with her new boyfriend. And yes, not having you with her might be part of it, too, but I don’t think it’s the primary cause, Kathryn. There might be other factors contributing on top of that, like the fast pace of events before, compared to a certain slowness of things she might be feeling right now, or a questioning of self-worth because she can’t contribute to what you do, neither professionally nor in terms of your pregnancy.”

“But she does,” Kathryn splutters. Marie, questioning her self-worth? Surely-

“To your eyes, she does. But in circumstances like this, people sometimes concentrate on the negative aspects.” Deanna looks down at her fingers, then meets Kathryn’s eyes with a lopsided smile. “And when you want to see them, suddenly they just pile up like nobody’s business.”

“So you agree it might be depression?”

Again, those eyebrows arch. “I haven’t seen Marie nor talked to her, Kathryn; I can’t really make a diagnosis like that based only on what you’ve told me. But there are circumstances and factors that would speak in favor of it.”

 _God._ “So what do I do?”

That, at long last, wakes a true smile on Deanna’s face. “Go to her.”

“But-”

“A surprise like this might jerk Marie out of what she’s currently going through, even if it’s only a bout of boredom. Bringing her along will help either way, too.”

Kathryn’s mouth quirks, too. “Another stealth move?” Oh, Marie would love being in space again.

“Take the _Garuda_ ,” Deanna goes on, discussing this mad idea quite seriously, “and Tom Paris. We don’t need either, anyway, not really, and he’s been dying to try the Aeroshuttle ever since it was installed. Anyone can fly us to Arcadia, after all, and you’ll need someone who can tickle the last bit of speed out of the _Garuda’s_ warp drive. Makes you glad he insisted on upgrading it, doesn’t it?” 

“And if you continue at warp six as planned, we could reunite in Arcadia’s orbit in four days.” Now Kathryn’s doing the same.

“Exactly. At _Garuda’s_ maximum warp you’d be on Gretchen’s doorstep in thirty-six hours, pick up your wife and be back on _Voyager_ in time for the grand reception.” Again, that smile surfaces. “And even if you’re a day late or so, I can handle the Arcadians. They’re peaceful enough, and really, we’re only going there to reassure them. They might even react positively to your taking care of your wife – their care for one another is exceptional, too, even if they don’t really share our concept of dyadic relationships.” 

“But I can’t tear through the Alpha Quadrant at maximum warp just because I theorize my wife might need me, Commander,” but Kathryn can’t deny her desire, her _need_ , to do exactly that. To hell with it all – she isn’t needed in those negotiations, and she wouldn’t, couldn’t abandon Marie a second time. 

“Well, take along Althea, then, and say it’s a test run for the brain-computer interface they’ve been working on. And a test run for your first officer’s ability to take over your duties when you’re going on maternity leave.”

“You’re thinking of everything, aren’t you.”

“First officer’s duty,” Deanna grins. “Kathryn – do it.”

“Why does everyone delight so much in saying this to me?”


	7. Unexpected (February 24th)

_I should have seen it earlier_ , Kathryn berates herself, gently caressing Marie’s face, exhausted and tearstained as it is. _I should have recognized the symptoms. And the reasons._

Her suspicion had been right. Deanna’s suspicions had been right. No job, no task (Marie had stopped contacting Ashtiani, weeks ago), no best friend (and certainly no one blamed Ellie for diving into job and relationship when she finally had the chance to shine in both), her wife gone for the better part of the week, and…

And then, a week ago, Marie had found out that Cologne didn’t exist anymore. Not as a city, not as a place where people lived, not as a place you could go to celebrate Carnival. 

“There were bombs, Kathryn,” Marie had said, voice breaking. “1993, and on Shrove Monday, for God’s sake. They placed one bomb in the football stadium and another in that round plaza we’d-” she’d choked, and Kathryn had remembered the place they’d celebrated Carnival. She’d swallowed, herself, at the thought that someone had been ruthless enough to plan and carry out an attack like that. “Two small nukes,” Marie had gone on, swallowing harshly, “fifty-two thousand dead instantly, and hundreds of thousands dead soon afterwards. All over Germany, there were more attacks. Oh, they knew where to hit us.” She’d grimaced. “Football and Carnival. Terrorism, pure and simple. The government collapsed soon afterwards, and the Augments went on to subdue France and Great Britain.”

She’d shuddered, far, far more battered than the revelation of what had happened to Cologne almost three hundred years ago seemed to warrant. But then again, it was a further reminder that this Earth wasn’t the Earth that Marie had left behind, that she couldn’t, as the poets said, go home again. 

No, it wasn’t depression as Kathryn had known it. Marie hadn’t shut herself into a room for weeks, hadn’t refused to see people or take care of herself, but she _had_ shut down in some ways. Had internalized, compartmentalized, hidden. Had suffered. And hadn’t realized herself what was happening, until about three hours ago, when Tom had beamed Kathryn right onto her doorstep. 

Kathryn had walked inside instantly, not bothering to knock or otherwise announce herself. Her mother had met her in the hall, and had simply raised her eyebrows (approvingly, Kathryn had thought) and pointed up the stairs. Marie hadn’t taken the surprise nearly as well as Gretchen Janeway had. A photon torpedo right to the gut it had been, and she’d crumbled, and dissolved into tears, and clung to Kathryn’s shoulders with every last ounce of her strength.

“I’m sorry,” she’d sobbed, again and again, until Kathryn had felt compelled to use her command voice to get her to stop. 

“There’s nothing, Marie, _nothing_ you have to be sorry about.” Marie hadn’t answered that, and somehow Kathryn doesn’t think her wife agrees, but at least she’d stopped apologizing. Then again, she hadn’t been exactly coherent, and now…

“I think she’s asleep,” Kathryn tells her mother when Gretchen looks in on the two of them.

“Well, let’s make her comfortable then.” Grabbing Marie’s legs, Gretchen gets her daughter-in-law horizontal, hands fluttering at Kathryn’s offer to help. “Stay out of it, dear. I’ve seen how you favor your back, and I know how I felt at six months.” She’d sat down next to Kathryn, hugging her. “Thank you for coming, Kathryn. It’s good that you’re here.”

“Nothing could have kept me, Mom.” True, that. Thirty-six hours of flight – well, minus a few hours of uneasy sleep – had been enough time to ponder the rightness of her move. “I have all my excuses in place, in fact; Tom and Althea are reporting to Admiral Patterson at the moment,” she sighs, “and I guess I’ll have to join them on subspace in a minute. But I’m taking Marie back with me, come hell or high water. I’m not leaving her alone.” Her mother’s mouth quirks, and Kathryn realizes. “God, I’m sorry, Mom. I know she wasn’t alone, as such-”

“Oh, nonsense, Katie. It’s perfectly alright. I’m not who Marie needs, after all.”

Another bit of tension dissolves, and suddenly, Kathryn feels tears tugging at her own eyelids. “Mom, I-”

“It’s alright, dear.” A mother’s answer, and a mother’s embrace. “It’ll all work out, you’ll see. She was with you before, and it worked. And you do have other civilians aboard, right now, so she wouldn’t be the only one.”

“Mom, we’ve been there. She’d be the only one without a job.”

“But all the kids you have aboard surely need supervision, and teaching? How many are there now, five? Six?”

Kathryn pulls away, eyes wide with incredulity. “Mom, that’s… eight, actually, counting this one,” she runs a hand over her belly. Then her eyes narrow again. “But Marie’s a social worker, not a teacher, Mom. And she can’t even prove that.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a lateral entrant filled that position, Kathryn. Owen Paris approved of quite a few requests like these following the launch of the first Galaxy-class ships. The _Yamato_ nursery teacher was originally a geological technician, I think, and the _Enterprise_ had a… oh, I don’t remember. Anyway, she wasn’t a certified teacher, either. And these are no ordinary classrooms, are they? More like the ancient one-class schools, with so many children of different ages. And what matters in those is to be able to explain things in an age-appropriate way, and Marie is that.”

“It sounds feasible,” Kathryn thinks out loud. “But, Mom, I already brought so many of the old crew aboard. I don’t want to be seen as favoring them. Bringing my wife aboard by requesting her as teacher…”

“Well, you _might_ want to ask her first, you know.” Gretchen smiles dryly. “Talk it over with your XO, too, and go from there.”

Kathryn slowly nods. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Oh, don’t thank me yet, Kathryn. So far, it’s just an idea. It might not even work. But – I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, dear.”

* * *

Ironic, isn’t it. Here I used to go on crusades against self-negation, and now this. Oh, I’m sure part of me saw it for what it was, but you know how it is – _I_ know how it is. You have someone you care for, someone to care for, and neglect yourself over them, or in this case, her. Until something makes you see. 

Of course hindsight is always 20/20. 

It wasn’t that I was floundering, I think, with nothing to do for me but turn up at the Smithsonian every time they asked me to. Nor the fact that I wasn’t a social worker any longer, either, because of missing diplomas and outdated knowledge. Nor the consequence of that, which was no longer counseling the people I’d counseled on _Voyager_. Of course Starfleet wouldn’t employ counselors without diplomas or a commission, and, hell, I couldn’t even find fault with that, could I. And no, it wasn’t even the fact that Ellie found her feet far quicker than I, working for Ambassador Troi and reveling in the colorfulness and demands of her new position, and in being in love with that drummer. I certainly didn’t begrudge her that; on the contrary, I was happy for her, or as happy as it was possible for me to be. That detachment was, I guess, the first clue I ignored. 

Maybe it was a combination of all of these. Maybe I even had an inkling that this time, _I_ had been kicked out of that carousel. But.

This assignment of Kathryn’s took her away from me, not for seven years at a time, certainly, but for weeks, and God, how I missed her. Her first trip, to Andor, took barely ten days, and even though I fidgeted when she went, I tried not to show it. After all, as I’d told her, a seventy-thousand light year displacement doesn’t happen twice to the same ship, does it. I even managed to not run and rush her when she returned. Oh no, I kept my composure and acted very sensible and grown-up, delighting in how her pregnancy had proceeded and clamping down, once more, on my guiltiness about not being at her side. And three days later, she was gone again, for two weeks on Ferasa, and then she left for Betazed, which I’d heard so much about, and after that, for… oh, I don’t even know. She left. Time and again, she left. And I found myself barking at people until Ellie, my meek and unassuming Leelee, barked right back at me to stop being an idiot, and I still I didn’t see, or didn’t want to see, what was going on. A second clue carefully overlooked.

Truth be told, I was… chafing. Irritated, and irritable. Not a happy camper. Kathryn – oh, Kathryn was back where she belonged, cleared of charges, feted and honored and even content with being counseled about all that happened to her. I? I was basically unemployed, not that it matters in terms of money – but I lived in Kathryn’s mother’s house, dined at Kathryn’s mother’s table, and when I bought or replicated something, it came out of Kathryn’s back pay. There were days when I looked at my wedding ring and wondered. Or got angry. 

And I didn’t have anything to _do_. No purpose, no goal. No partner to take care of? When did that happen, _how_ did that happen? Self-negation. Hell, I’d bent Ellie’s ear with it for years, and now I’d slid right into the same old shoe. A slight decline, I guess it was; a slippery slope, ever so gentle. That realization frightened me most, and of course I closed my eyes to it. Again, I barked, and even louder, lashing out at everyone and anyone. And then I beat myself up for it, and for not telling my wife what was going on. 

I needed to talk to her about this, I knew that every time I didn’t have my eyes screwed shut. I’d promised her I’d tell her if something was wrong, and something _was_ wrong, terribly wrong, and I didn’t. I just didn’t know how, and it shook me more than I’ll care to admit. Hell, I’m a social worker – I should have felt right at home with talking things out. But she wasn’t there and I couldn’t talk to her about it over subspace. And when she was home, she was so happy to see me, and I her, and we had so few hours to be together, and how could I have brought it up then, _how?_

And even if I had found a way to bring it up, what solution could I have presented? 

We’d already agreed that there was no place for me on _Voyager_. And I certainly couldn’t have asked her to leave _Voyager_ and stay with me. Completely out of the question, not only because she’d accepted the mission but also because it did her good to have a goal again. I _saw_ that. As I said – ironic. After a while, Gretchen started to look at me as if she suspected something; Ellie certainly did. She reached out to me as often as she could, even offering to find a Carnival party to go to with me until we realized that the ambassadorial anniversary was in the way. 

She couldn’t have known about Cologne. She was just as devastated as I’d been, at the news (well, to us at least) of what had happened to our hometown in those… Eugenic Wars. A kick to the guts, it had been, or two, rather – to think that people had done something like that, _and_ to know that in my, in our timeline, nothing of the sort had happened. Our timeline. Our home, Goddammit. 

And then, two days ago, Kathryn suddenly stood in front of me, and now I’m on _Voyager’s_ belly shuttle (I know it’s called differently, but I can’t help think of it as such – surely silliness is a step in the right direction?), back on my way to the place that feels more like home than every other place I’ve lived in for the last year. 

What a way to spend an anniversary.

* * *

The new comm. signal, one of several updates to _Voyager’s_ system and certainly nothing more than a minor annoyance, announces an incoming message. “Open a channel, Mister Paris.”

The person that appears is the Arcadian Autarch, Ham’Te Vol, and she’s looking distraught, to Kathryn’s eyes. “Admiral Janeway, it’s fortunate that you’re finally within comm. range.”

“Comm. range? The Tau Ophiuchi relay links you to the Federation subspace network, doesn’t it?”

The Autarch blinks repeatedly. “It does, but our own orbital relay station went critical two days ago. Apparently the fusion reactor couldn’t withstand the gravimetrical shear of our two moons as long or as well as our engineers had thought it would.”

Tom Paris, fingers dancing over his console, nods affirmation, the movement barely visible.

“We immediately dispatched a ship to the Tau O relay, of course, to tell the Federation about it, but I didn’t want them to tell you the rest of it; I wanted to do so myself.” The UT rendition of her voice is hesitant, almost nervous.

“Well, what do you want to tell me then, Autarch?” Kathryn smiles to reassure her.

“ _Voyager_ was close to our orbital relay when it happened, working with our people to stabilize it. I’m afraid-” Ham’Te bares her tiny teeth in what the reports have told Kathryn is a gesture of commiseration. “Admiral, your ship exploded when the station did.”


End file.
